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Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker-designate Nancy Pelosi have held firm on their bid not to give any new money to the president beyond current funding levels. | Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images

Liberal groups push Dem leaders to take harder line in shutdown talks

The American Civil Liberties Union and a coalition of left-leaning political, immigration, environmental and labor groups are urging Democratic leaders to further pare down their border fence offer to President Donald Trump once Democrats take over the House and try to reopen the government.

In fact, the groups want House Speaker-designate Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) to deny the president money for his fence altogether rather than give the Department of Homeland Security a year of funding at the same level as last year. The two Democratic leaders have offered Trump roughly $1.3 billion in money for fencing as part of a continuing resolution for DHS, though Trump has publicly asked for as much as $5 billion.

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“Less money is of course better than Trump’s demand for $5 billion, but the harms caused by your proposed funding as compared to his are just as real, divisive, and damaging. In short, a continuing resolution that includes $1.375 billion for border barrier construction clearly funds Trump’s wall project and must be rejected,” the coalition of groups wrote in a letter obtained by POLITICO.

Dozens of groups signed the letter, from Indivisible to the ACLU to the National Immigration Law Center. The message was delivered to Capitol Hill offices on Friday afternoon and also included a demand that Democrats cut the Department of Homeland Security’s detention and deportation funding.

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Schumer and Pelosi have held firm on their bid not to give any new money to the president beyond current funding levels. The Senate Appropriations Committee had forged a bipartisan deal for $1.6 billion for fencing, but House Democrats panned it after the midterms and Democratic leaders are now united around delivering the president no increase over last year’s fence funding.

But Democrats’ leverage will get even better when the new Congress begins next week and Pelosi becomes speaker. And that’s why progressive groups are asking the leaders to give Trump a far worse deal than he would have gotten a week ago, when negotiations to keep the government open were still happening in earnest between the White House and members of Congress from both parties.

“As much as we all desire an end to the shutdown, however, rewarding Trump’s DHS with border barrier money is the wrong course of action,” the groups wrote. “Now is the time to truly say NO to Trump’s wall: no to $5 billion, no to $2.1 billion, no to $1.6 billion, no to $1.375 billion. And to reject any additional funding for detention beds, ICE and Border Patrol agents, or other harmful enforcement.”